The looming threat of World War III, a potential extermination event for the human species, is made more likely because the world's public can't count on supposedly objective experts to ascertain and evaluate facts. Instead, careerism is the order of the day among journalists, intelligence analysts and international monitors - meaning that almost no one who might normally be relied on to tell the truth can be trusted.

The dangerous reality is that this careerism, which often is expressed by a smug certainty about whatever the prevailing groupthink is, pervades not just the political world, where lies seem to be the common currency, but also the worlds of journalism, intelligence and international oversight, including United Nations agencies that are often granted greater credibility because they are perceived as less beholden to specific governments but in reality have become deeply corrupted, too.

In a redux of "Hillary is bound to win", Reuters and the mainstream are once again pulling out all the stops prophesying Marine Le Pen's impending loss to Rothschild's candidate, Emmanuel Macron (The Saker outlines). While the corporate media's undying support for the globalists comes as no surprise, the fact the Rothschild is sending in the manservant reveals a desperation. Apparently, France is the key battlefield in the desperate battle for control of Europe.

My colleagues and I often joke about Jacob Rothschild's man "Reginald", a make-believe manservant who does all the dirty work for the world's most powerful man. Whether, or not we choose to accept it or not, the Rothschild's immeasurable wealth and influence is a reality. And the fact the family has not already been put on billboards as the beneficiaries of chaos is proof positive. Only the truly powerful can stay so far out of the limelight, even despite epic dealings underneath all around the world. It was Rothschild remember, who held in trust the Yukos oil shares for Putin's worst enemy, Mikhael Khodorkovsky. But if the truth be know, the ousted Yukos oligarch was probably leveraging Russian assets for his bosses in the UK. Who can say for sure, but Vladimir Putin kicking Rothschild and George Soros out of Russia was not on account of petty dealings. Now France and the EU hang in the balance, and it looks like Reginald (or Drakula's lunatic aid Renfield one) is being placed in Paris. Come to think of it, Macron does favor the Bram Stoker character that served his master so well. Seriously, if you compare the wild eyed stare of actor Alexander Granach in the film Nosferatu of 1922 with Macron's grinning idiot poses, you'll swear the financier is a reincarnated minion of the world's most famous vampire. How anybody could even consider voting for this man falls into the realm of witch spells and hypnotic Dracula stares.

Is Vladimir Putin the most popular Russian leader of all time?

It certainly looks like it. In a recent survey conducted by the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center, Putin's public approval rating soared to an eye-popping 86 percent, which is twice that of Obama's when he left office in 2016. And what's more surprising is that Putin's popularity has held up through a severe economic slump and nearly two decades in office. Unlike most politicians, whose shelf-life is somewhere between 4 to 8 years, the public's admiration for Putin has only grown stronger over time.

And the phenom is not limited to Russia either. According to a recent survey by the pollster YouGov, "Putin is the third most admired man in Egypt, the fourth in China, Saudi Arabia and Morocco, and the sixth most admired man in Germany, France and Sweden." And don't even mention Syria, where naming babies after the Russian president is all-the-rage.

Putin also won Time magazine's prestigious Person of the Year award in 2007, and has remained among the top ten on that list for the last decade. The only place that Putin is not popular is in the United States where he is relentlessly demonized in the media as a "KGB thug" or the "new Hitler". According to a 2017 survey by Gallup, only "22% of Americans hold a favorable opinion of Putin" while "72% hold an unfavorable opinion of him."

For many people in the west, the traditional political compass seems broken, and "left" and "right" are almost indistinguishable in a confused political mess. The controversy surrounding the Arab-American figure now embraced by the Democratic Party, Linda Sarsour, illustrates this perfectly.

A Political Compass for Syria

In Syria, it is very clear who the "right" and the "left" are. The "right" is the group of Wahabbi fanatics that seek to overthrow the Syrian government. The stated goal of many, if not all, of the different groups working to overthrow the Syrian government is to end religious freedom and establish a government in Syria similar to that of Saudi Arabia. Fanatics from across the region and the world are pouring in for a fanatical crusade to bring the Syrian government down. The western capitalist powers, the USA, France, Britain, etc. have all enthusiastically backed this campaign, which would replace a Baath Socialist government rooted in the region's anti-imperialist struggles, with a pro-western, Saudi-style regime. Weapons, funding, supplies, and propaganda from the western capitalist powers are all being unleashed to support the right-wing anti-government forces in Syria.

Donald Trump has discussed his first 100 days in an interview aired on CBS Sunday. The wide-ranging interview saw the president give his opinions on North Korea, Democrats, his tax returns and of course, Russia. North Korea

Trump described North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as a "smart cookie," and dismissed the suggestions that his efforts to pressure North Korea had failed in light of Pyongyang's recent missile test.

Trump said he and Chinese President Xi Jinping would not be happy should North Korea carry out a nuclear test.

"The relationship I have with China, it's been already acclaimed as being something very special, something very different than we've ever had." Trump said.

Congress ended the week by passing a continuing resolution keeping the government funded for one more week. This stopgap funding bill is designed to give Congress and the White House more time to negotiate a long-term spending bill. Passage of a long-term spending bill has been delayed over objections to Republican efforts to preserve Obamcare's key features but give states a limited ability to opt out of some Obamacare mandates.

This type of brinkmanship has become standard operating procedure on Capitol Hill. The drama inevitably ends with a spending bill being crafted behind closed doors by small groups of members and staffers and then rushed to the floor and voted on before most members have a chance to read it. These "omnibus" spending bills are a dereliction of one of Congress's two most important duties — allocating spending. Of course, Congress long ago abandoned another primary duty — preventing presidents from launching military attacks without first obtaining a congressional declaration of war.

Despite President Trump's recent policy reversals, talk from within the administration claims he still personally wants better relations with Russia, though most of the officials within his administration supposedly disagree with him

Whether this is true or not remains to be seen. One thing however has not changed, which is that President Trump continues to reject the whole Russiagate story, including the allegations of collusion between his campaign team and the Russians.

President Trump made this clear today in an interview with CBS Face the Nation, in which he described the whole Russiagate story of collusion between his campaign team and the Russians as "phony".

This is not surprising. Quite apart from the fact that there is no evidence of such collusion, President Trump would scarcely admit to it even if it actually happened.

What is actually far more interesting is that President Trump also continued to cast doubt on the starting point of the Russiagate scandal, the claim that the Russians hacked the DNC's and John Podesta's computers and passed on the emails they stole from there to Wikileaks.

Donbass learns to live without Kiev

Three years after the start of the conflict between Kiev and the separatist region of Donbass, no solution is in sight. Ukrainian President Piotr Poroshenko blows hot and cold, hesitating between the establishment of a firm blockade and the restoration of controlled economic ties. On the Donetsk side, the population is organizing, awaiting a hypothetical military intervention.

"They shot the building on the night of February 3 to 4. We reopened the store on the 20th this week." Wrapped up in her beautiful scarf and coat, the saleswoman shows us the damage caused by the Ukrainian army, before going on to welcome the customers.

Her shop has no window glass because of the blast of the explosions. Like the entire outskirts of the city of Donetsk, the Kievski district bears the marks of the conflict between the Kiev government and the separatist Donbass militias confidentially supported by Moscow.

Gutted buildings and fronts scarred by shrapnel recall the intensity of a war that has cost the lives of nearly ten thousand people since April 2014."Until the last moment I did not think that our own army would be capable of shooting us!" exclaimed Sacha, a resident of Donetsk, as he made his way through the craters in the streets of the neighborhood.

The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas will drop its long-standing call for Israel's destruction as well as its association with the Muslim Brotherhood in a new policy document to be issued on Monday, Gulf Arab sources said.

Hamas's move appears aimed at improving relations with the West, Gulf Arab states and Egypt, which label the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.

Many Western countries classify Hamas as a terrorist group over its failure to renounce violence, recognize Israel's right to exist and accept existing interim Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements.

Israel rejected the reported document, calling it an attempt by Hamas to delude the world that it was becoming a more moderate group.

The U.S. national security adviser, Army Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, says Russian President Vladimir Putin is "acting against the Russian people's interest" in his relationship with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his policies to aid the Taliban in Afghanistan.

McMaster, speaking on April 30 on the Fox News Sunday television program, also said the United States needed to see a "change in behavior" by the Russian president before relations could improve.

McMaster's comments about Putin are closely watched for signs of President Donald Trump's posture toward Russia. During the U.S. presidential campaign and in his early days in office, Trump highly praised Putin, calling him a strong leader.

But relations have frayed, with Washington and Moscow clashing over policies regarding Syria, Iran, Ukraine, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.